Eastward Ho!: Exploding mud and a pootle across the Caspian Sea to Turkmenistan.......

Another long tedious border crossing sees us arriving in Azerbaijan after crossing the river from Georgia.

Sheki was to be our first destination, and our accomodation was a caravansarai in the town.

Caravansarai's were used in the past to house people and animals using the silk road, the animals were housed downstairs and the people stayed on the top floor. Emily and I were allocated our room in the downstairs section, where the animals once stayed, but luckily there was no trace of them anymore!

Caravansari, Sheki

En-route to the city of Baku, we stopped off at a beautiful, secluded bush camp, which I rated as my favourite so far. What made it so great were the amazing bubbling mud volcanoes that were dotted all around us. They weren't as big as I imagined, but size isn't everything, and they certainly kept us all entertained for a while, with some getting a little too close for comfort and falling through the surrounding precarious earth and straight into a pile of thick, grey and luckily cool earth. Both Jim and Sandra had a close encounter with a mud volcano but lived to tell the tale and give the rest of us a good giggle. They washed themselves off at the perfectly located lake next to our tents, and we all enjoyed a great bush camp amongst the solitude of the volcanoes with not another soul around for many miles.


Sandra after a close encounter with a mud volcano


Bush camp

View of our home for the night

Bubbling mud

Lake by the camp

Ben and Richard around the unusually small camp fire!

The city of Baku was seen in a brief whistle stop tour as this was to be the last place we would be in Azerbaijan, and as everyone wandered the city, Jim and CJ headed off the the port to secure our passage out of Baku and onwards to Turkmenistan, across the Caspian Sea.

After negotiations down at the port, we had the news we were to leave on an old oil ship during the night and to be ready and up for breakfast at 2am! 2am saw us all bleary eyed and eating a premature breakfast before heading off to the port where a waiting game about to commence. There was no set departure time for our boat, and as night turned into day and delerium set in, we all had visions of another day and night waiting outside at the edge of the port. Luckily our boat arrived and unloaded it's goods before loading all of us, and the truck, on board. A couple of hours later and we were finally off and heading across the Caspian Sea!


Dossing down for the night


Aoife, Susan and Zoe looking remarkably fresh after no sleep


Still waiting.............

All aboard.......on deck but still patiently waiting to leave


At last we're on the move


Some of us bedding down for the night on deck

It certainly wasn't your average cruise ship, with dirty cabins, a communal toilet that you had to stand on raised foot platforms so you were a foot off the floor, that hadn't ever been cleaned and you had to dodge the turds on the floor like a mine field before even reaching the 'toilet'. The cuisine on offer was what we ourselves provided, pot noodles in my case, and the scary cleaner that we nicknamed Svetlana made you want to hide under your cabin bunk everytime she shouted, especially when she's banging on your door at 5am telling you "Turkmenbashi, Turkmenbashi", meaning we had arrived at our destination approximately 12 hours earlier than anyone had anticipicated. I thought it was some kind of joke until I saw land though the port hole of the cabin.

On land and yet another long border wait, we met our guide Max who would be staying with us throughout our stay in Turkmenistan.

Ashgabat was our first city destination after a bush camp, and on arrival, everyone headed to the Zip bar for chicken and chips, a few beers and back to our hotel rooms for the 11pm curfew, and yes, I really did say curfew. I thought they were just for deliquent
teenagers.......obviously not.